Wanted: Criminals run free while authorities drown in open arrest warrants in Massachusetts

Wednesday

(Editor's Note: This is the first of a two-part series. Part 2 can be found here.)

Millions of Americans are wanted on criminal arrest warrants, including hundreds of thousands of fugitives accused of murder, rape, robbery or assault, while victims wait for justice.

In Massachusetts, there are more than 390,000 open warrants.

Many of the cases stay open for years, even decades, and often are forgotten as law enforcers and judges struggle to keep up with thousands of new warrants filed in courthouses across the nation each day.

An investigation by The Columbus Dispatch, GateHouse Media and Wicked Local found more than 5.7 million cases in 27 states with open arrest warrants — enough to lock up 83.1 percent of all Massachusetts residents.

Add in the rest of the nation, and that number easily could double. Reporters sought records from all 50 states, but 23 did not provide usable data.

Among those warrants, reporters identified nearly 240,000 cases that involved violence, a weapon or sexual misconduct. That's enough to fill every state prison cell in Texas, Michigan and Virginia.

When such warrants remain unserved, violent suspects remain at large and increase the risk that someone else will be harmed, possibly killed. Law enforcement officials across the nation said it’s their biggest fear when they don’t have the resources to track everyone down.

"Most jurisdictions around the nation are doing nothing with warrants like this. Nothing,” said David Kennedy, professor of criminal justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City and director of the college’s National Network for Safe Communities.

Meanwhile, warrants pile up.

As of Aug. 20, 2018, open warrants in Massachusetts accumulated to 390,383, with charges dating back to 1970, according to data compiled by the Massachusetts Executive Office of the Trial Court. That's enough to fill every Massachusetts state and county prison cell nearly 13 times.

The data was provided in response to a public records request by Wicked Local.

“As warrants are issued, the majority are closed, but a number remain open for various reasons, such as individuals are in jail, have not been apprehended, have been deported, have moved out of state, or are currently incarcerated out of state,” wrote Court Administrator Jonathan S. Williams in a response to the records request. “There are a number of other technical reasons that explain this cumulative phenomenon.”

Citing “undue burden or expense,” Massachusetts would not break down the warrants by original offense, or provide any biographic information about the accused. The additional information, provided by other states, could help shine a light on how open warrants are issued across demographics and geography. Without the charges, it’s impossible to separate which warrants are related to violent charges.

Additionally, local and district courts either didn't know how to compile the data, or refused to provide it, saying all compiled data reports must come through the Trial Court.

Interviews with judges, attorneys and law enforcement officials from across Massachusetts, along with statistics shared by other states, show a large portion of the unserved warrants stem from minor offenses, such as not paying a parking ticket or failing to obtain a dog license.

And while the charges cross socioeconomic levels, the warrants disproportionately affect poorer communities and racial and ethnic minorities.

“Open warrants have been a problem in the Massachusetts court system for decades,” explained retired Judge Raymond G. Dougan, who served as an associate justice at Boston Municipal Court from 1991 to 2014.

Paths to a warrant

Many routes in the criminal justice system lead to an arrest warrant.

Authorities issue a warrant when they have evidence that someone committed a crime but haven’t yet located or arrested the suspect. Many people face warrants because they were charged with a crime, or even given a traffic ticket, but didn’t appear for a court date. Others were convicted but violated the terms of their probation.

Most people, especially those wanted for minor offenses, will remain free as long as they don't cross paths with law enforcement in a jurisdiction that has access to their warrant. Often, it takes a routine traffic stop for a warrant to lead to an arrest.

“People are stunned when they’re stopped for a traffic ticket and then taken into custody,” said Peter Elikann, a Massachusetts defense attorney. “If you’re arrested on a Friday evening, and court doesn’t open until Monday, you could be sitting in lockup for three days.”

Overall, records collected by GateHouse Media showed one case with an open arrest warrant for every 32 people in the states that provided data. In Massachusetts, the number totaled about one warrant for every 17 people.

Of the 27 states that provided records, several acknowledged that their records did not include thousands of warrants held at hundreds of local courthouses. The other 23 states either don’t consider warrants public records, don't collect statewide information or wouldn’t provide data in a format that could be analyzed accurately.

Among the millions of unserved warrants are individual tales of suspects on the run — like the New York man police suspect shot and killed a Worcester man over money and drugs in 2002, or the Jamaican man law enforcement says killed his estranged girlfriend in Weymouth in 2017.

Waiting for justice

Andlee Cribb is hopeful, but ever-skeptical, the suspected killer of his 8-year-old son’s mother will be brought to justice.

Police since August 2017 have been looking for Cornel Bell, who is suspected of killing Michelle Clarke of Weymouth.

The 33-year-old mother, who had dated Bell in the past, worked two jobs at the time. She shared a son with Cribb, who was hopeful an arrest would be made. But as time passed, his optimism started to fade.

“I’m not giving up,” he said. “I’m hopeful something will come up and justice will be served, but I honestly don’t think that will happen. It just doesn’t seem like much is happening.”

Bell, who goes by different names, was already wanted on outstanding warrants for other violent crimes at the time he is suspected to have killed Clarke.

The words, “He should be considered armed and dangerous,” are written on Bell’s wanted poster.

Massachusetts State Police put Bell on its Most Wanted list, saying he stole Clarke’s car, which was found several days after her death in Florida.

Born in Jamaica, Bell has ties to Dorchester, Florida and Jamaica, police said. The search continues, but Cribb says it feels to him like the effort to find Bell has deteriorated, which is concerning for someone who is waiting for justice for Clarke.

It's easy for open warrant cases to languish as new ones crop up, authorities say. Sometimes arrests follow a nudge — from a victim, an activist, a journalist — for a fugitive to be found.

Leroy Lawrence was walking along a street in Anchorage, Alaska, on April 7, 2017, his 17th birthday. He was on his way to see a girl he liked when a stray bullet struck him in the face. Two men in a Chevrolet Monte Carlo had driven up close to where Lawrence was walking and started shooting at other men who had stepped out of an SUV.

The likable high school basketball player was revived in an ambulance and spent four days on life support before he died.

“My son was just an innocent bystander in a senseless drive-by shooting,” said an emotional Gene Lawrence, Larry's father. “Nothing is going to bring him back, but we wanted justice.”

Police immediately arrested one of the two accused of being the attackers, a 16-year-old. But 20-year-old Haitim Mahir Taha, the driver of the Monte Carlo, fled the scene, and ultimately the country. Authorities believed he was in Israel.

The murder warrant for Taha went unserved for more than 18 months before The Dispatch contacted Anchorage police in September to ask what was being done to find the suspect abroad. About two weeks later, Israeli authorities arrested Taha. He is expected to be extradited to Alaska to face charges in Lawrence’s death.

“I don’t know who you called or what you did to get this case moving, but thank you,” Gene Lawrence told The Dispatch. “I feel bad for everyone involved in this tragedy, but if you do something stupid like this, you should pay the consequences for it.”

Tough choices

Those responsible for serving warrants in Massachusetts law enforcement agencies often are drowning in other duties that take time away from tracking down offenders. And new cases, with fresher leads, come into police departments every day.

One case can consume days, weeks or longer.

Law enforcement agencies say they try to prioritize their cases, but it’s easy for some to fall through the cracks if the warrants aren’t served in the first few days or weeks. When judges issue bench warrants for probation violators or for those who failed to appear in court, police often don't know about it.

Judges are buried under their own caseloads and rarely have time to pick up the phone to call detectives on individual cases.

Since retiring, Dougan has tried to count the number of decisions he made over 25 years on the bench, estimating it was in the hundreds of thousands.

“Judges may have 100 cases called in the course of a day,” Dougan said. “It’s very unlikely that judges sitting in sessions day after day are going to remember all of the stuff that comes up.”

For law enforcement, it can be frustration when they receive warrants to pick up someone they arrested months, weeks or even days before. In Wareham, Teena Hill, a homeless woman, was arrested at least seven times on outstanding warrants during 2018. The Wareham Police Department wouldn’t disclose the original charges, citing the 2014 domestic violence law that prohibits police departments to disclose records related to domestic violence.

“We try to follow up on them aggressively because we don’t want people walking around out there with outstanding warrants,” said Wareham acting Police Chief John Walcek. “Obviously it can get a little frustrating for us when we arrest the same person over and over again (on outstanding) warrants, but I learned early in my career to not let things coming out of the courthouse bother me.”

And while so many open warrants are related to nonviolent offenses, serving warrants can nonetheless be dangerous.

In 2017, Braintree police officer Donald Delaney was shot in the head while trying to serve a restraining order to a Boston man who had a an active warrant for domestic assault and battery, kidnapping and threatening to commit a crime. The officer lived.

A year later, Yarmouth police officer Sean Gannon, a 32-year-old K-9 officer, was trying to serve a warrant in Barnstable when the effort turned deadly.

Thomas M. Latanowich, a former convict with more than 100 prior criminal charges, violated terms of his probation, triggering a default warrant. Latanowich shot and killed Gannon while he was trying to serve the warrant, according to police.

Time is the enemy

The 2002 killing of Stanford Graham happened inside a third-floor apartment in Worcester.

Three men argued over money before shots were fired and Graham was left for dead, according to police. A large amount of cocaine was found inside the apartment.

According to a report by the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, a Wicked Local sister publication, suspected killer and New York City native Omar Nunes fled to Queens, along with his father Calvin Nunes, after the fatal confrontation.

The father and son, who also suffered gunshot wounds, checked into different New York hospitals, saying they’d been victims of drive-by shootings. The father was eventually caught in 2006. He was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 15 to 20 years in prison, according to the T&G.

But Omar Nunes was never found and an open murder warrant is still waiting for him in Worcester Superior Court.

Law enforcement officers across the nation say the best window to catch a fugitive is within the first few days of the arrest warrant being filed.

Judges, police, lawyers and reformers use words like "flood" and "fire hose" to describe the torrent of warrants from U.S. courts. At times, they say they feel helpless to keep up. Almost all agree that it’s vital to prioritize cases that represent the biggest threat to the public.

But that doesn’t always happen and with enough time and inaction, any case with any charge can end up on the backburner.

“The courts are overwhelmed. The police are overwhelmed. That’s the way it is,” said Sgt. Joseph Gugino of the Waltham Police Department. “It’s tough to find the time for some of these warrants, or cold cases, because police work is nonstop.”

(Part 2 will focus on who is most affected by open warrants and explores different efforts to clear the backlog, highlighting the system's ineffectiveness and overall strain on the judicial system in Massachusetts.)

Eli Sherman is an investigative and in-depth reporter at Wicked Local and GateHouse Media. Email him at esherman@wickedlocal.com, or follow him on Twitter @Eli_Sherman.